Served as senior defence advisor to the West German Chancellor
Konrad
Adenauer

Erich von Manstein (November 24, 1887 – June 9,
1973) served the German military as a lifelong professional
soldier. He became one of the most prominent commanders of Germany's World War II armed
forces (Wehrmacht). During World War II he
attained the rank of Field Marshal (Generalfeldmarschall) and was
held in high esteem by his fellow officers as one of the
Wehrmacht's best military strategists.

He was the initiator and one of the planners of the Ardennes-offensive alternative in the
invasion of France in 1940. He received acclaim from the German
leadership for the victorious battles of Perekop Isthmus, Kerch, Sevastopol and Kharkov. He commanded the
failed relief effort at Stalingrad and the Cherkassy pocket evacuation. He was
dismissed from service by Adolf Hitler in March 1944, due to his
frequent clashes with Hitler over military strategy. In his
memoirs, "Verlorene Siege (1955)," translated into English as "Lost
Victories," he is silent on Nazi crimes, critical of Hitler, above
all, for denying the Army flexible defensive maneuverability and
for "over-reliance" on his "will," and critical of the attempt by
other military officers on Hitler's life.[1]

In 1949 he was tried in Hamburg for war crimes and was convicted of
"Neglecting to protect civilian lives" and using scorched earth tactics which denied vital
food supplies to the local population. He was sentenced to 18 years
in prison, later reduced to 12 but he only served 4 years before
being released. After release from a British prison in 1953, he
became a military advisor to the West German Government.

Early
life

Von Manstein was born Fritz Erich von Lewinski
in Berlin, the tenth child of
a Prussian aristocrat, artillery general Eduard von
Lewinski (1829–1906), and Helene von Sperling (1847–1910).
Hedwig von Sperling (1852–1925), Helene's younger sister, married
Lieutenant General Georg von Manstein (1844–1913). The couple were
not able to have children, so it was decided that this tenth,
unborn child would be adopted by his uncle and aunt. When he was
born, the Lewinskis sent a telegram to the von Mansteins which
stated: You got a healthy boy today. Mother and child well.
Congratulations.[2]

Not only were both Erich von Manstein's biological and adopted
father Prussian generals, but his mother's brother
and both his grandfathers had also been Prussian generals (one of
them leading a corps in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71). In
addition, he was closely related to Paul von Hindenburg, the future
Generalfeldmarschall and President of Germany. Thus, his
career in the Prussian army was assured from birth. He attended the
Lycée
in Strasbourg
(1894–99), a territory which had been conquered by the German Empire after
the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71. He
spent six years in the cadet corps (1900–1906), in Plön and Groß-Lichterfelde and joined the
Third Foot Guards Regiment (Garde zu Fuß) in March 1906 as
an ensign. He was promoted to Lieutenant in January 1907, and in
October 1913, entered the Prussian War
Academy.

Inter-war
era

Von Manstein married Jutta Sibylle von Loesch, the daughter of a
Silesian landowner in 1920.
She died in 1966. They had three children: a daughter named Gisela,
and two sons, Gero (b. December 31, 1922) and Rüdiger. Their elder
son Gero, serving as a Lieutenant in the Wehrmacht, died on the
battlefield in the northern sector of the Eastern Front on October
29, 1942.

Von Manstein stayed in the military after World War I. In the 1920s, he participated
in the formation of the Reichswehr, the German Army of the Weimar Republic
(restricted to 100,000 men by the Versailles
Treaty). He was appointed company commander in 1920 and later
battalion commander in 1922. In 1927 he was promoted to Major and
began serving with the General Staff, visiting other countries to
learn about their military facilities. In 1933 the Nazi party rose to power in
Germany thus ending the Weimar period. The new regime renounced the
Versailles Treaty and proceeded with large
scale rearmament and expansion of the military.

On July 1, 1935, von Manstein was made the Head of Operations
Branch of the Army
General Staff (Generalstab des Heeres), part of the
Army High Command (Oberkommando des Heeres).
During his tenure, he proposed the development of Sturmgeschütze, self-propelled assault
guns that would provide heavy direct-fire support to infantry,
relieving the mobile tank forces of this responsibility. In World
War II, the resulting StuG series would prove to be one of the most
successful and cost-effective German weapons.

He was promoted on October 1, 1936, becoming the Deputy Chief of
Staff (Oberquartiermeister I) to the Chief of the Army
General Staff, General Ludwig Beck. Von Manstein initially
supported Beck in resisting the political influence of the Nazi
Party in the army, at one point going so far as to issue a
memorandum calling for an end to racial indoctrination in the army,
but he soon changed tack. Later, von Manstein maintained that the
OKH should refrain from interceding in political matters and even
in matters of higher strategy, claiming that these matters were
Hitler's responsibility. The General Staff's task, he argued, was
to produce the operational planning necessary to realize Hitler's
goals and no more. Beck was inevitably distressed by this and
severed relations with von Manstein, dismissing him as "not a man
of bad character, but a man of no character at all." On February 4,
1938, with the fall of Werner von Fritsch, von Manstein was
demoted to commander of the 18th
Infantry Division in Liegnitz, Silesia with the rank of Generalleutnant.[3]

World War
II

Poland

On August 18, 1939, in preparation for Operation Fall Weiß, the German invasion of Poland, von Manstein was
appointed Chief of Staff to Gerd von Rundstedt’s Army Group
South. Here he worked along with von Rundstedt’s Chief of
Operations, Colonel Günther Blumentritt in the
development of the operational plan. Von Rundstedt accepted von
Manstein’s plan calling for the concentration of the majority of
the army group’s armored units into Walther
von Reichenau’s 10th Army, with the objective of a
decisive breakthrough which would lead to the encirclement of
Polish forces west of the Vistula River. In von
Manstein’s plan, two other armies comprising Army Group South, Wilhelm List’s 14th
Army and Johannes Blaskowitz’s 8th Army,
were to provide the flank support for Reichenau’s armored thrust
towards Warsaw, the Polish
capital. Privately, von Manstein was lukewarm about the Polish
campaign, thinking that it would be better to keep Poland as a
buffer between Germany and the Soviet Union. He also worried about
an Allied attack on the West Wall once the Polish campaign started,
thus drawing Germany into a two-front war.

Launched on September 1, 1939, the invasion began successfully.
In Army Group South’s area of responsibility, armored units of the
10th Army pursued the retreating Poles, giving them no time to set
up a defense. The 8th Army prevented the isolated Polish troop
concentrations in Łódź, Radom and
Poznań from merging into
a cohesive force. Deviating from the original plan that called for
heading straight for the Vistula and then proceeding to Warsaw, von
Manstein persuaded von Rundstedt to encircle the Polish units in
the Radom area. The plan
succeeded, clearing the bulk of Polish resistance from the southern
approach to Warsaw.

France

On September 27, 1939, Warsaw formally surrendered, although
isolated pockets of resistance remained. That same day, Hitler
ordered the Army High Command, led by General Franz Halder, to
develop a plan for action in the west against France and the Low Countries. The different plans that
the General Staff suggested were given to von Manstein and his
staff, who, with Gerd von Rundstedt's approval,
formalized an alternative plan for Fall Gelb (Case Yellow ).
This plan received Hitler's attention in February 1940 and finally
his agreement.

By late October, the bulk of the German Army was redeployed to
the west. Von Manstein was made Chief of Staff of von Rundstedt’s
Army Group A in
western Germany. Like many of the army's younger officers, von
Manstein opposed Fall Gelb, criticizing it for its
lack of ability to deliver strategic results and the uninspired use
of the armored forces, which may have come from OKH's inability to
influence Hitler's planning. Von Manstein pointed out that a repeat
of the Schlieffen Plan, with the attack
directed through Belgium,
was something the Allies expected, as they were already moving
strong forces into the area. Bad weather in the area caused the
attack to be canceled several times and eventually delayed into the
spring.

During the autumn, Von Manstein, with the informal cooperation
of Heinz
Guderian, developed his own plan; he suggested that the panzer
divisions attack through the wooded hills of the Ardennes where no one would
expect them, then establish bridgeheads on the Meuse
River and rapidly drive to the English Channel. The Germans would thus
cut off the French and Allied armies in Belgium and Flanders. Von
Manstein's proposal also contained a second thrust, outflanking the
Maginot Line,
which would have allowed the Germans to force any future defensive
line much further south. This second thrust would perhaps have
avoided the need for the Fall Rot (Case Red ) second
stage of the Battle of France (Von Manstein, 2004). The plan was
after the event nicknamed Sichelschnitt (sickle cut).

Oberkommando der Wehrmacht
originally rejected the proposal. Halder had von Manstein removed
from von Rundstedt's headquarters and sent to the east to command
the 38th Army Corps. But Hitler, looking for a more aggressive
plan, approved a modified version of von Manstein's ideas, which
today is known as the Manstein Plan. This modified version,
formulated by Halder, did not contain the second thrust. Von
Manstein and his corps played a minor role during the operations in
France, serving under Günther von Kluge's 4th Army. However, it was his corps which
helped to achieve the first breakthrough during Fall Rot,
east of Amiens, and was the
first to reach and cross the River Seine. The
invasion was an outstanding military success and von Manstein was
promoted to full general and awarded the Knight's Cross of the Iron
Cross for suggesting the plan.

Barbarossa

In February 1941, von Manstein was appointed commander of the
56th Panzer Corps. He became involved in Operation
Barbarossa, serving under General Erich Hoepner. Attacking on June 22,
1941, von Manstein advanced more than 100 miles in only two days
and seized two vital bridges over the Dvina River at Dvinsk.

Crimea and the Battle of
Sevastopol

In September 1941, von Manstein was appointed commander of the
11th Army. Its previous commander,
Colonel-General Eugen Ritter von Schobert,
had perished when his plane landed in a Russian minefield. The 11th
Army was tasked with invading the Crimea, capturing Sevastopol and pursuing enemy forces on the
flank of Army Group South during its advance into Russia [Von
Manstein, (2004)].

After the initial German breakthrough, the rest of the Perekop
area had to be secured. After ten days of fighting, the Soviet line
was overrun on 28 October. The Germans quickly seized control over
the whole peninsula, and by 17 November, only the city of Sevastopol held out.

The attack on Sevastopol began October 30, 1941 but failed and
on December 21, just as the Germans were preparing for their last
push, the Soviets launched a spoiling attack, forcing them back.
Shortly thereafter the Soviet winter offensive began, producing the
Wehrmacht's so-called "Winter Crisis".

Just over a week later, on December 26, 1941, the Soviets landed
on the Kerch straits, and on December 30, executed
another landing near Theodosia. Only a hurried withdrawal from the
Kerch straits, in contravention of Manstein's orders, by 46 Infantry Division
under General Hans Graf von Sponecks command
prevented a collapse of the eastern part of the Crimea, although
the division lost most of its heavy equipment. This situation
forced von Manstein to cancel a resumption of the attack on
Sevastopol and send most of his forces east to destroy the Soviet
bridgehead. The situation was stabilised by late April 1942.

Operation Trappenjagd, launched on May 8,
1942, aimed at expelling the Russian forces from the Kerch
peninsula. After feinting against the north, the 11th army attacked
south, and the Soviets were soon reduced to fleeing for the Kerch
straits. Three Soviet armies (44th, 47th, and 51st), 21 divisions,
176,000 men, 347 tanks, and nearly 3,500 guns were lost.[4] The
remains of the force were evacuated and Trappenjagd was completed
successfully on 18 May.

With months delay von Manstein turned his attention once more
towards the capture of Sevastopol, a battle in which Germany would
use some of the largest guns ever built. Along with large numbers
of regular artillery pieces, super-heavy 600mm mortars and the 800mm "Dora"
railway gun were brought in for the assault. The furious
barrage began on the morning of June 7, 1942, and all of the
resources of the Luftwaffe's Luftflotte 4, commanded
by Wolfram von Richthofen,
descended on their targets, continuing for five days before the
main assault began.

The outer defensive rings were breached by June 16, 1942, and on
July 4, 1942 Sevastopol fell. Hitler, delighted at hearing the good
news, phoned von Manstein and commended him as "The Conqueror of
Sevastopol", informing him that he had ordered von Manstein's
promotion to Generalfeldmarschall.

Leningrad

After the capture of Sevastopol the German high command felt
that any city could be taken with a determined enough attack, and
von Manstein was seen as the right man to finally break Leningrad, which had been under siege from
autumn the previous year. Von Manstein, with elements of the 11th
Army, was transferred to the Leningrad front to lead Operation Nordlicht, which was hoped to be
the final capture of the city, set to launch on September 15, 1942.
Hitler was confident that with considerable amounts of artillery
and the new Tiger tank
this operation would finally break the determined Soviet defense;
von Manstein, on the other hand, was more pessimistic, arguing that
a simultaneous attack in the north by the Finns would be needed.

On August 27, 1942 the Soviets launched a spoiling attack
against Georg
Lindemann’s 18th Army in
the narrow German salient west of Lake Ladoga. Von Manstein was forced to
divert his forces in order to avoid catastrophe. A series of bitter
battles ensued, in which von Manstein's smaller forces managed to
outmaneuver the larger Soviet forces, which lost over 60,000 men
over the course of the next few months. This meant, however, that
the Germans were not able to execute a decisive assault on
Leningrad, and the siege continued into 1943.

Stalingrad

On February 17, 1943, under heavy security, Hitler flew in to Army
Group South's headquarters at Zaporozh'ye, Ukraine;
just 30 miles away from the front line. Seen here,
Generalfeldmarschall von Manstein is greeting Hitler on the local
airfield; on the right are Hans Baur and the Luftwaffe
Generalfeldmarschall Wolfram von Richthofen

On November 21, 1942, during the Battle of Stalingrad, Adolf Hitler
appointed von Manstein commander of the newly created Army Group Don
(Heeresgruppe Don), consisting of a hastily assembled
group of tired men and machines, and ordered him to lead Operation Wintergewitter (Winter Storm),
the rescue effort by Hermann Hoth's 4th Panzer Army and auxiliary Romanian troops to relieve the
6th Army of Friedrich Paulus trapped inside Stalingrad. Wintergewitter, launched on
December 12, achieved some initial success and von Manstein got his
three panzer divisions and supporting units of the 57th Panzer
Corps (comprising the 23rd Panzer Grenadier Division, and the 6th and
17th Panzer
Divisions) within 30 miles of Stalingrad by December 20.
However, the corps was halted at the town of Aksay, and strong Russian forces eventually
pushed them back.

At this point, von Manstein recommended Paulus to
break out of the city, despite Hitler's refusal to allow a break
out attempt. Erich von Manstein did however not dare to give the
break out order himself, even though he could have, since he was
Paulus's superior.[5]

Operation Saturn, a massive Red Army offensive in the
southernmost part of the front, aimed at capturing Rostov and thus
cutting off the German Army Group A, which was still withdrawing
from the Caucasus, forced
von Manstein to divert his forces to help hard-pressed Army Group A, in its
retreat to Ukraine, thus
avoiding the collapse of the entire front. The attack also
prevented the 48th Panzer Corps (comprising the 336th Infantry
Division, the 3rd Luftwaffe Field Division, and the 11th Panzer
Division), under the command of General Otto
von Knobelsdorff, from joining up with the 57th Panzer Corps as
planned. Instead, the 48th Panzer Corps held a line along the River
Chir, beating off successive Russian attacks. General Hermann Balck used
the 11th Panzer Division to counterattack Russian salients. But the
Romanian, Italian, and Hungarian armies on the flanks were
overwhelmed, and the 48th Panzer Corps was forced to retreat. As a
result, the remnants of the 4th Panzer Army retreated, as its
northern flank was exposed by the loss of the Don.

Kharkov
Operation

By early February, the German forces began to regroup. Von
Manstein's Army
Group Don combined with Army Group B and was made into the new
Army Group
South (Heeresgruppe
Süd), which was led by von Manstein. On February 21, 1943,
he launched a counteroffensive into the overextended Soviet flank.
The assault proved a major success; von Manstein's troops advanced
rapidly, isolating Soviet forward units and forcing the Red Army to
halt most of its offensive operations. By March 2, tank spearheads
from Hoth's 4th Panzer Army and Army Detachment Kempf met, cutting
off large portions of the Soviet Southwest Front, and by March 9,
the Wehrmacht had inflicted a heavy defeat on the Soviets at Krasnograd and Barvenkovo. An estimated
23,000 Soviet soldiers were killed and a further 9,000 were
captured. Additionally, 615 Soviet tanks and 354 guns were
captured.

Operation
Citadel

During Operation Citadel, von Manstein led the southern pincer,
and despite losses, he managed to achieve most of his initial
goals, inflicting far more casualties than he sustained. In his
memoirs, Marshal Georgy Zhukov, who led the Soviet defense
at Kursk, praised von Manstein. But due to the almost complete
failure of the northern sector's pincer led by Günther
von Kluge and Walther Model, chronic lack of infantry
support and an operational reserve, as well as Operation Husky, the Allied invasion of
Sicily, Hitler called off the offensive. Von Manstein protested,
asserting that the victory was almost at hand as he felt he had
achieved local superiority, and that with a little more effort, he
could crack the Soviet defenses before they could bring up their
reserves. After the failure of Citadel, the Soviets launched a
massive counterattack against the exhausted German forces.

A German victory in the sense of annihilating the surrounded
Soviet forces required both the completion of the encirclement
(that is the linking of the northern and southern German pincers)
and holding the encirclement long enough to overcome the encircled
Soviet forces. Even if the first had been accomplished it does not
follow that the second would automatically follow. The German
forces post-Stalingrad were never able to force the Soviets into
significant retreats, except for temporary reversals like Kharkov.
After halting the German offensive at Kursk, the Soviets had enough
strength to launch immediate counterattacks.

Dnieper
Campaign

In September 1943, von Manstein withdrew to the west bank of the
river Dnieper, inflicting heavy casualties on the
Red Army. From October to
mid-January 1944, von Manstein stabilized the situation on the
South Front. However, The Soviets established a salient from Kiev, and were within reach of the
crucial town of Zhitomir. The Germans launched a successful
counteroffensive, in which 1st SS
Division Leibstandarte SS Adolf Hitler and 2nd SS Division Das Reich, together with 1st, 7th, 19th,
and 25th Panzer
Divisions and 68th Infantry Division (part of 4th Panzer Army), wheeled around the flank
of the Russians in front of Zhitomir. Several notable victories
were won, at Brussilov, Radomyshl, and Meleni, under the guidance
of General Hermann
Balck. Balck, and his chief of staff, had wanted to attack the
base of the salient and go for Kiev, but General Raus favored a
more prudent approach.[6] In late
January 1944, von Manstein was forced to retreat further westwards
by the Soviet offensive. In mid-February 1944, he disobeyed
Hitler's order and ordered 11th and 42nd Corps (consisting of
56,000 men in six divisions) of Army Group South to break out from the
"Korsun Pocket", which occurred on February
16–17, 1944. Eventually, Hitler accepted this action and ordered
the breakout after it had already taken place.

Dismissal

Von Manstein continued to argue with Hitler about overall
strategy on the Eastern Front. Von Manstein advocated an elastic,
mobile defense. He was prepared to cede territory, attempting to
make the Soviet forces either stretch out too thinly or to make
them advance too fast so that they could be attacked on the flanks
with the goal of encircling them. Hitler ignored Manstein's advice
and continued to insist on static warfare. Because of these
frequent disagreements, von Manstein publicly advocated that Hitler
relinquish control and leave the management of the war to
professionals, starting with the establishment of the position of
commander-in-chief in the East (Oberbefehlshaber Ost).
Hitler, however, rejected this idea numerous times, fearing that it
would weaken his hold on power.

This argument also alarmed some of Hitler's closest henchmen,
such as Göring and the SS chief Himmler,
who were not prepared to give up any of their powers. Himmler
started to question von Manstein's loyalty openly and insinuated
that he was a defeatist unsuitable to command troops. Von
Manstein's frequent arguing combined with these allegations
resulted in Hitler relieving von Manstein of his command in March
1944. Instead, on April 2, 1944, Hitler appointed Walther Model, a firm supporter, as
commander of Army Group South. Nevertheless, von Manstein received
the Swords for his Knight's Cross, the third highest German
military honour.

After his dismissal, Von Manstein entered an eye clinic in
Breslau, recuperated near Dresden and then retired. Although he did
not take part in the attempt to kill Hitler in July 1944, he had
been contacted by Henning von Tresckow and others in
1943 about the plot. While von Manstein did agree that change was
necessary, he refused to join them as he still considered himself
bound by duty. (He rejected the approaches with the statement
"Preussische Feldmarschälle meutern nicht" – "Prussian
Field Marshals do not mutiny.") He also feared that a civil war
would ensue. Though he didn't join the plotters, he did not betray
them either. In late January 1945, he collected his family from
their homes in Liegnitz and evacuated them to western Germany. He
surrendered to British Field Marshal Montgomery and was arrested by British
troops on August 23, 1945.

Postwar

Trial

During the Nuremberg trials in 1946, von Manstein was
only called as a witness for the defense. Von Manstein was
subsequently interned by the British as a prisoner of war
in "Special Camp 11" in Bridgend. Later, because of pressure from the
Soviets, who wanted him extradited to stand trial in the USSR, the British
accepted their indictments and charged him with war crimes, putting
him on trial before a British Military Tribunal in Hamburg in August 1949. In
part, because of the Soviet demands in the Cold War environment and
respect for his military exploits, many in the British military
establishment, such as Field Marshal Bernard Law Montgomery and the military
strategist B. H. Liddell Hart, openly expressed
sympathy for von Manstein's plight and, along with the likes of Sir
Winston
Churchill, donated money for the defense. Churchill saw the
trial as yet another effort of the then-ruling Attlee government
to appease the Soviets.

In court, von Manstein's defense, led by the prominent lawyer Reginald Thomas Paget, argued that he had
been unaware that genocide
was taking place in the territory under his control. It was argued
that von Manstein didn't enforce the Commissar order,
which called for the immediate execution of Red Army Communist
Party commissars.
According to his testimony at the Nuremberg trials,
Volume 20, pp. 608–609 (August 10, 1946) [1], he received it,
but refused to carry it out. He claimed that his superior at the
time, Field Marshal von Leeb, tolerated and tacitly
approved of his choice, and he also claimed that the order was not
carried out in practice.

However, von Manstein did issue an order on November 20, 1941:
his version of the infamous "Reichenau Order" [2], which equated
"partisans" and "Jews" and called for draconian measures against
them. Hitler commended the "Reichenau Order" as exemplary and
encouraged other generals to issue similar orders. Von Manstein was
among the minority that voluntarily issued such an order. It stated
that:

"This struggle is not being carried on against the Soviet
Armed Forces alone in the established form laid down by European
rules of warfare.

Behind the front too, the fighting continues. Partisan
snipers dressed as civilians attack single soldiers and small units
and try to disrupt our supplies by sabotage with mines and infernal
machines. Bolshevists left behind keep the population freed from
Bolshevism in a state of unrest by means of terror and attempt
thereby to sabotage the political and economic pacification of the
country. Harvests and factories are destroyed and the city
population in particular is thereby ruthlessly delivered to
starvation.

Jewry is the middleman between the enemy in the rear and
the remains of the Red Army and the Red leadership still fighting.
More strongly than in Europe they hold all key positions of
political leadership and administration, of trade and crafts and
constitutes a cell for all unrest and possible uprisings.

The Jewish Bolshevik system must be wiped out once and for
all and should never again be allowed to invade our European living
space.

The German soldier has therefore not only the task of
crushing the military potential of this system. He comes also as
the bearer of a racial concept and as the avenger of all the
cruelties which have been perpetrated on him and on the German
people."

...

"The soldier must appreciate the necessity for the harsh
punishment of Jewry, the spiritual bearer of the Bolshevik terror.
This is also necessary in order to nip in the bud all uprisings
which are mostly plotted by Jews."

The order also stated: "The food situation at home makes it
essential that the troops should as far as possible be fed off the
land and that furthermore the largest possible stocks should be
placed at the disposal of the homeland. Particularly in enemy
cities a large part of the population will have to go
hungry."(ibid.) This also was one of the indictments against
von Manstein in Hamburg; not only neglect of civilians, but also
exploitation of invaded countries for the sole benefit of the
"homeland", something considered illegal by the then current laws of war.

The order additionally stated that "severe steps will be
taken against arbitrary action and self interest, against savagery
and indiscipline, against any violation of the honor of the
soldier" and that "respect for religious customs,
particularly those of Muslim Tartars, must be demanded."
(ibid.) The evidence for this order was first presented by
prosecutor Telford
Taylor on August 10, 1946, in Nuremberg. Von Manstein
acknowledged that he had signed this order of November 20, 1941,
but claimed that he didn't remember it. This order was a major
piece of evidence for the prosecution at his Hamburg trial.

While Paget got von Manstein acquitted of many of the seventeen
charges, he was still found guilty of two charges and accountable
for seven others, mainly for employing scorched earth tactics and for failing
to protect the civilian population (Src.: Liddell Hart Centre for
Military Archives), and was sentenced on December 19, 1949, to 18
years imprisonment. This caused a massive uproar among von
Manstein's supporters and the sentence was subsequently reduced to
12 years. However, he was released on May 6, 1953 for medical
reasons.

Von Manstein, one of the highest ranking generals in the
Wehrmacht, claimed ignorance of what was happening in the
concentration camps. In the Nuremberg trials, he was asked "Did you
at that time know anything about conditions in the concentration
camps?" to which he replied "No. I heard as little about that as
the German people, or possibly even less, because when one was
fighting 1,000 kilometers away from Germany, one naturally did not
hear about such things. I knew from prewar days that there were two
concentration camps, Oranienburg and Dachau, and an officer who at
the invitation of the SS had visited such a camp told me that it
was simply a typical collection of criminals, besides some
political prisoners who, according to what he had seen, were being
treated severely but correctly." [4])

Senior
advisor

Called on by the West German Chancellor Konrad
Adenauer, von Manstein served as his senior defense advisory
and chaired a military sub-committee appointed to advise the
parliament on military organization and doctrine for the new German
Army, the Bundeswehr
and its incorporation into NATO.
He later moved with his family to Bavaria. His war memoirs, Verlorene
Siege (Lost Victories), were published in Germany in
1955, and translated into English in 1958. In them, he presented
the thesis that if the generals had been in charge of strategy
instead of Hitler, the war on the Eastern front could have been
won.

Never having been a member of the Nazi party, he had no trouble
in West Germany,
unlike some of the Reich's more notorious Hitler supporters.
Because of his influence, for the first few years of the
Bundeswehr, he was seen as the unofficial chief of staff. Even
later, his birthday parties were regularly attended by official
delegations of Bundeswehr and NATO top leaders, such as General Hans Speidel who was
the Commander-in-Chief of the Allied ground forces in Central
Europe from 1957 to 1963. This was not the case with pro-Nazi Field
Marshals such as Milch, Schörner, von
Küchler, and others, who were disregarded and forgotten after
the war.

Erich von Manstein suffered a stroke and died in Munich on the night of 9 June
1973. He was buried with full military honors. His obituary in
The Times on
June 13, 1973, stated that "His influence and effect came from
powers of mind and depth of knowledge rather than by generating an
electrifying current among the troops or 'putting over' his
personality."

From Wikiquote

A war is not lost until you consider it lost.

Erich von Manstein (November 24, 1887 – June 9, 1973) served the German military as a
lifelong professional soldier. He became one of the most prominent
commanders of Nazi Germany's armed forces (Wehrmacht). During World
War II he attained the rank of Field Marshal (Generalfeldmarschall)
and was held in high esteem by his fellow officers as one of the
Wehrmacht's best military minds. He was dismissed from service by
Adolf Hitler in March 1944, due to his frequent clashes with Hitler
over military strategy. In 1949, he was brought on trial in Hamburg
for war crimes, which convicted him of "Neglecting to protect
civilian lives" and for using scorched earth tactics denying vital
food supplies to the local population. He was sentenced to 18 years
in prison, which was later reduced to 12. After release from
British prison in 1953, he became a military advisor for the West
German Government. Manstein suffered a stroke and died in Munich on
the night of 9 June 1973. He was buried with full military
honors.

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Sourced

If Paulus's army had capitulated before the end, the Russians
would have had the advantage of withdrawing forces against Paulus
and against the southern front, where I had only two Romanian
armies. Therefore, the resistance of the Sixth German Army, even to
the death of the last man, was necessary.

To Leon Goldensohn (14 June 1946). Quoted in "The Nuremberg
Interviews" - by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History -
2004

I tried at that time to relieve the Sixth Army, of which I was
supreme commander, above Paulus, by counterattacks - but it was not
possible. I gave the order finally for the Sixth Army to break out,
but then Paulus said it was too late and not possible. Hitler did
not want the Sixth Army to break out at any time, but to fight to
the last man. I believe that Hitler said if the Sixth Army tried to
break out, it would be their death.

To Leon Goldensohn (14 June 1946). Quoted in "The Nuremberg
Interviews" - by Leon Goldensohn, Robert Gellately - History -
2004

Unsourced

A war is not lost until you consider it lost.

About
Manstein

He was not only the most brilliant strategist of all our
generals, but he had a good political sense. A man of that quality
was too difficult for Hitler to swallow for long. At conferences
Manstein often differed from Hitler, in front of others, and would
go so far as to declare that some of the ideas which Hitler put
forward were nonsense.

The general verdict among the German generals I interrogated in
1945 was that Field-Marshal von Manstein had proved the ablest
commander in their Army, and the man they had most desired to
become its Commander-in-Chief. It is very clear that he had a
superb sense of operational possibilities and equal mastery in the
conduct of operations, together with a greater grasp of the
potentialities of mechanized forces than any other commander who
had not been trained in the tank arm. In sum, he had military
genius.

Manstein despised Göring and loathed Himmler. To his most
trusted colleagues he admitted to Jewish antecedents. He could also
be scathing about Hitler. As a joke, his dachshund Knirps had been
trained to raise his paw in salute on the command "Heil Hitler". On
the other hand, his wife was a great admirer of Hitler, and more
importantly, Manstein, as already mentioned, had even issued that
order to his troops mentioning "the necessity of hard measures
against Jewry"